Quite simply. If there is a poor atmosphere, such as seems to pervade our club at the moment, that almost inevitably will feed it's way through to the players' performance. It seems to be an attitude problem that appears to feed it's way down from the top. As you seem to have eliminated all other possible causes, i then suggested that the chairman was the only remaining common denominator.
The story was it had turned since then. This may well have been in the 90s, i can't remember. I have no idea if it is true (it turning, i highly doubt the curse bit regardless) Edit - A brief google suggests it (well one of them) was taken down for high winds in 2012. Unrelated but probably indicates the cocks haven't remained un-fiddled with (lol) since the 60s
It's been like that since before he took over. It was probably even worse during Sugar's time at the club.
I don't remember it ever being this bad. The whole atmosphere seems so bad around the club at the monent.
My belief that Pochettino has what it takes to find a good setup for our players is iffy at best. On the other hand, he has tried at least a couple of different things, they were relatively successful, and sacking another manager is a frightening prospect. So I would say sacking him is premature ATM. I would give him a little time at least to make changes. If he doesn't make changes, and/or it's clear he's lost the dressing room and isn't getting it back, then it seems there's no choice. On an only partly related point, I think the system he and AVB play is overrated even in theory. It's not as simple as control possession, keep the ball in the other team's half, and you have the advantage. That's facile reasoning. It ignores the fact that it's difficult to score under any circumstances, and much more difficult to score against a team packed into their penalty box. If they're packed into their 18 yard area, and know the other team is going to try to pass it through the middle, the chances are even lower. What makes a team vulnerable is when the ball is within scoring range and they only have a few players to patrol the space around the keeper. The AVB-Pochettino system ensures it will be the team that plays the system that has this happen to them more. Of course, if the players are good enough, and superior enough to the opposition, they can make it work, and even turn it to their advantage. Even though ours are more talented than most of the teams they play, they aren't so much more talented that they can make it work. Hence losing to three straight less talented teams. They also have tried and failed with this system, so the belief isn't there, which greatly compounds the problem.
For what its worth rwaeb, I think Pochettino seeks to play football 'constantly on the break' if you will - high pressure off the ball means that we can take possession and the opposition are disorganised while we break quickly. The most important and dangerous times in a football match are the transitions between attack->defence and defence->attack and Pochettino wants his teams to be constantly benefiting from those transitions. Because we're not seeing a lot of pressing, especially high up the pitch, we are seeing the deficiencies in his game plan - that when we don't attack quickly upon gaining possession we are faced with teams sitting many men behind the ball, and we don't play with enough width (due to both team selection and lack of players available) to create space and chances in those situations. Whatever his end goal is though, its abundantly clear that what the team is doing right now isn't working.
Thanks, HF, for the explanation. I'm not much more than a beginner in terms of my understanding, but what I see is quarters of the field. Harrassing their defenders in the fourth quarter (from your POV; the quarter farthest from your keeper and containing theirs) is good if done by a few harriers (not by the whole team), since a change of possession there has such a huge potential for a goal. Pressing by the whole team in the third quarter is a bad idea because if they get through the press, they'll be able to launch an attack against your lightly defended goal, with your players forced to sprint back half the field to catch players running forward. Conversely, if you do get the ball, their defenders are near enough to their own goal to be able to get back to defend it relatively comfortably. So pressing with your whole team past the halfway line is high risk/low reward. Pressing in the second and first quarter comes under the heading of basic defending. You can't give the player with the ball time and space, nor can you give him easy passing targets. So it comes down to a question of whether you try to press with your whole team past the halfway line. I think you shouldn't. Pochettino seems to be trying to (much more than Sherwood did), and it's a major factor in giving up so many easy goals. IMO. As to what we do when we get the ball: clearly it's a good idea to attack as quickly as possible. It gives the defenders less time to settle, and may result in a good chance on goal. As far as that goes, Pochettino has got the team doing a decent job, IMO, though certainly it's spotty. His teams have more trouble with the width issue, or the lack of it. We get the ball wide and cross so little the other team has too easy of a time blocking our almost inevitable pass-through-the-middle tactics. The essence of good attacking strategy is to make defenders make difficult choices quickly. We tend to make them do something fairly quickly, but not to make choices, for the most part. To be fair, we do get it wide on (rare) occasion(s) and are very dangerous when we do. It seems to me all our recent PL goals have come from getting it wide. So for all our travails, between the often quick-ish buildup and the occasional bit of width, we aren't exactly toothless, certainly not as toothless as under AVB.
I think pressing works rwaeb, as long as the whole team is willing and able to press. In terms of being able to do so, this requires excellent fitness (which has to be built up over time and some players just aren't able to do it even given that time) and coaching so that the players know when to commit to a press, because commitment from all involved is key, and when not to. As far as I could tell from Southampton, many of the players said that a lot of the coaching work from Pochetttino and his team was based around building the player's footballing intelligence so that they could make effective decisions re. pressing on the pitch, as obviously Pochettino isn't sat in the dugout with an xbox controller. Again, this takes time to imbed in the players. The point about them being willing is important too. What with some of the characters in our squad right now, I wouldn't put it past some of them to be making a seriously half-arsed effort, which won't helping at all. As you rightly say though, pressing in the final third can be disastrously ineffective - do it badly and teams play around you into the space the pressing players leave. Do it well though and you isolate their CBs/DMs, the players you would expect to be less assured on the ball, and force them into panicked decisions and therefore giving away possession in a position that is very advantageous to our team. Earlier in the season Eriksen provided a great example of this, robbing an opposition player midway into their half, and passing it to another of our players who went on to score. I can't for the life of me remember who it was against but it definitely happened! Whatever it is we're doing right now though, it clearly isn't working very well.
The only one I'd wanna keep is Lloris. Anyone else and I mean anyone else I would shed no tears if they left.
Just something to add clarity perhaps: When HF talks about "the whole team closing down" he doesn't mean everyone run towards the guy with the ball! He means the nearest player to the guy with the ball closes him down. But other players then close down the other opposing players who the guy with the ball might want to pass to. This needs to happen pretty much across the whole pitch to be successful otherwise your striker is sprinting around closing down defenders who have easy passes to fullbacks/midfielders etc. He's getting exhausted whilst achieving bugger all. IF, however, your wingers* are marking the other team's fullbacks and your midfielders are picking up their men then it can be fruitful. Thing is that my whole life when things go pear-shaped for a team this is what happens: 1) Sack the manager. 2) New manager plays 442. 3) New manager says squad aren't fit enough. 4) New manager says that the team must learn to "defend from the front". Normally works OK too. And about every five years or so it's as if it's some new idea and some incredible insight to say something along the lines of "defend from the front". I can't really see how the "high-pressing game" is any different to what umpteen new managers have talked about when coming into a job. One of the first things Gerry Francis said when he came in was how Spurs had to learn to defend all over the pitch. *Ha! Wingers! What is this? 2006?
We could start by learning to defend at the back. Our keystone cops defence must currently be one of the most disorganised in the premiership.
Like i said, he's the one that HAS to go if we really think the squad needs an overhaul. The money has to come from somewhere. Vorm is a very good keeper.
We have conceded more goals from defensive errors in the last few years than any other team (EPL). This is a fact not a guess. Chelsea the fewest.
Hardly surprising when the likes of fazio make willie young look good. Having been brought up watching the likes of Mike England Phil Beal mabbs ledley etc these lot can't even class themselves as defenders
I'd rather we defended from the middle, so our defence might actually have the chance to get organised in the first place.
Have to go: Kaboul - Captain. Leader. Nowhere near good enough. Paulinho - Manager doesn't rate him, he's not playing and when he does play he doesn't fit into the system well at all. Adebayor - Lazy twat and a drain on our wage bill. Chiriches - Same as Paulinho. Dembele - He's had too many chances. He's got great ability but too frequently slips back into a slow and ponderous game that suits the opposition. Lennon - I get the feeling Pochettino's only giving him token appearances. Love the guy but he just doesn't look anything like the dangerous player he was a few years ago. The rest I'm inclined to keep unless we get a really good offer for them. I've been as frustrated as anyone with Fazio but he's had quite a similar start to Demichelis in that he looks slow and doesn't read the game well but that all changed as he got more used to the Premier League and by the end of last season he was getting lots of praise. Same for Mertesacker too. In: Benteke and Schneiderlin(or any playmaker).
My list is quite similar YV Out: Paulinho: should never have bought him in. Might be a good player in there somewhere but its never going to happen at Spurs Dembele: such a frustrating player. Physicality and technical ability in abundance and a powerful left foot but he's just too limited and conservative in his attacking play Chiriches: looked promising at times last season but I don't think the manager rates him and he hasn't looked at all good this season Ade: attitude stinks and has plenty of previous in this department BAE: yeah, he's still here, knocking around somewhere... I don't think we'll see Lennon and/or Townsend leave unless really good offers come in January. Kaboul stays because selling your captain months after appointment might not be the best move for squad morale. It could be a masterstroke too but I don't think Pochettino will do it. Theres a strong case for dropping him from the team though. In: We'll need a third striker if Ade goes. Benteke would actually be a risk for me, because be hasn't exactly been tearing up trees since he came back from injury, and he'd command a hefty premium fee. Bony would be good but again, we'd have to pay through the nose. Chadli has more league goals than Bony or Benteke so far this season, he actually has the same as Southampton's Pelle and West Ham's Sakho. As Soldado proved, buying an effective striker is a very difficult task for our club. I'm glad I'm not a real scout. If Kaboul and Chiriches were to leave, we'd need another CB. We've been linked with Hector Moreno at Espanyol so that could be a move we see if we lose 2 CBs this January. In terms of wide men, if we were to sell Lennon and/or Townsend I'd still be looking to bring in one player, and that is Nathan Redmond, who I think is a fantastic young English winger. If we could negotiate a good price then I'd love to see him in a Spurs shirt, as long as he'd actually be used as a proper winger. PSV's chairman Phillip Cocu was quoted the other day as saying that Memphis Depay will be sold, presumably soon, but he'd be someone we'd have to stump up a considerable fee for and he could be another Lamela in terms of lacking immediate impact, which we can't really afford right now. Continuing to play fantasy football, Paulo Dybala at Palermo is a great young Argentinian forward but the fees being touted around for him are North of what we paid for Lamela, and he'd represent another huge risk at that price that we probably couldn't afford. And if we ditch Paulinho and Dembele then Schneiderlin would still be a player I'd like to see us try and sign, even if it was at the expense of someone like Capoue too. I'll be happy as long as all the transfer decisions, incoming and outgoing, are the manager's decisions, not Levy's.
